


Next Best Thing

by thegreatpumpkin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M, Masturbation, Twincest, Unresolved Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 12:57:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7052716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatpumpkin/pseuds/thegreatpumpkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merry Month of Masturbation prompt: It's totally normal for twin brothers to masturbate together, right? After all, they share everything, so why not this? But what happens when they can't masturbate without each other?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Next Best Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [merryismaytime2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/merryismaytime2016) collection. 



> I got this done with four minutes left in May. Although by the time I managed to post, it was June :P

“Who are you thinking about?” Elrohir asks, tipping his head back against the headboard. Elladan sits opposite, unconsciously mirroring him; they each have a leg stretched out straight on the coverlet, the other tucked underneath themselves. Their hands move at a surprisingly similar pace, given Elrohir is gazing at some fixed point between himself and the ceiling, and Elladan’s eyes are closed.

“Lirien. You?”

“Glorfindel,” Elrohir says, his voice warm with admiration, and Elladan _hmms_ in approval. It’s quiet for a moment.

“Damn,” says Elladan, his breath catching on a laugh, “now _I’m_ thinking of Glorfindel.”

“In the blue robes?” They both consider that—Elrohir closes his eyes now too, to better call up the way Glorfindel looks in midnight blue silk tailored a little too tight.

“I was thinking at the training yards.” That’s an enticing image too; stripped to the waist and sheened with sweat, his golden curls pinned up into a messy bun, the muscles of his arms and back in glorious definition. Their rhythms diversify the more they get into it; Elladan likes it firm and fast, but Elrohir is more sensitive, and his grip is lighter, his strokes easy but precisely timed.

It’s long habit, this. Sometimes they watch one another, try different techniques. It was Elladan who figured out the difference a bit of oil made, Elrohir who first tried using his off-hand for variety. It’s not always that tame; they’ve tried things in one another’s sight that they would blush to tell anyone else about, but it seems safe enough, when they know all the best and worst of one another already.

Today, though, it’s just good old familiar routine.

“Would you ever actually…?” Elladan asks a little later, his breath coming short.

“With Glorfindel?” Elrohir says, though he doesn’t actually open his eyes to see the nod of confirmation. “Probably not. It would be too strange.” Elladan makes a noise of agreement, and Elrohir grins. “But it’s nice to picture.”

“Yes.” It really is, and if it’s not exactly _himself_ Elladan is picturing with Glorfindel, it’s only because he knows Elrohir’s looks a little better than his own. It’s only a fantasy, anyway; it’s not as if either one of them has true designs on Glorfindel, or—or anyone else that might feature in their lustful imaginings. Elladan doesn’t read too deeply into it, not even when he spills faster than usual, nearly missing the cloth he’s grabbed to contain the mess.

Elrohir laughs at him, lifting his head. “Lucky you wouldn’t try it with him, if you get there that quickly just _imagining_ what he might look like under the robes! You’d have your trousers sticky before he even got you out of them.”

Elladan makes an undignified, vengeful sound and balls up the cloth, throwing it at Elrohir’s face. Elrohir ducks and drops his cock to bat it away, laughing even as his nose wrinkles. “Valar, that’s disgusting! Don’t throw things like that at people!” He wipes his hand with exaggerated fastidiousness on the bedspread, then returns to his task, still grinning.

“I assure you,” Elladan says primly, “that if I _were_ to bed Glorfindel, I would comport myself in a perfectly satisfactory fashion.”

“You mean you’d do this first to make sure.” Elrohir leans back again, eyes closed. “Twice, probably. Once in the morning, and then again right before you were meant to go and meet him.” He is breathing harder now too, only giving half his attention to mocking his brother. “You could probably hold out longer then. Until he got inside you, at the very least.”

Elladan’s ears go pink. “Why do you assume he’s on top in this scenario?”

“Oh,” Elrohir says thoughtfully. “I just—no, all right, I can see the appeal.” He clearly can. He makes these soft sounds in the back of his throat when he gets close, sounds Elladan recognizes all too well; it won’t be long now.

Elladan, helpfully, suggests an image to go on. “I like to think he’d look very fine laid out on his back, with all that hair tumbled around him.”

“With his legs wrapped around your waist?” Elrohir gasps out, and Elladan half-wishes he hadn’t gone over so fast, because that’s a thought he’d like to explore more thoroughly.

“Mm,” he says in agreement. “Begging you to—or no, better, _instructing_ you. You know that tone he gets when you’ve finally done something right in training. _Well done, Elrohir, keep your speed up—_ ”

Elrohir laughs helplessly, even as he spends over his hand. It’s not the first time he’s come laughing at Elladan.

~

Elladan’s never really noticed before—perhaps it’s not this way at home—but when Elrohir is not at his side, women are far more likely to approach him. He supposes they do have something of an impenetrable confederacy when they are together, speaking in a language of shorthand and inside jokes that is impossible for anyone else to follow. Whatever the reason, by the first night of his solo trip to Lothlorien, he’s had more plainly admiring looks and flirtatious invitations than in a month back home.

The Galadhrim are lovely, too. He remembers that from their last visit, but he and Elrohir were together then, not to mention significantly younger and therefore more under their grandparents’ guardianship. This time he’s a little older, permitted to go about on his own in a way that assures he’s been able to properly appreciate all the...sights the Golden Wood has to offer.

When he retires—the talan is small, but it seems like a luxury still, a guest room he doesn’t have to share—he’s resolved to burn off some of the pleasant tension. There was a dancer at the evening’s entertainment who had accepted his compliments afterward with a very pretty blush; he thinks of her as he changes into a light tunic and climbs into bed, already mostly roused by the time he takes himself in hand.

Something doesn’t feel right, though. He touches himself the way he usually does, and it’s not bad, but...there’s something unsatisfying about it.

It takes him a moment to realize. He wants—he wants someone to describe her to. Elladan likes putting things into words, likes laying out the curve of a maiden’s breasts and the sheen of her hair and the tilt of her mouth into language for Elrohir’s waiting ears. Or hearing about the men who take Elrohir’s interest, the harder planes of their beauty sketched out in the same medium.

He briefly considers just saying it aloud, talking to himself, but the thought makes him so self-conscious and embarrassed that it dampens his arousal. There is privacy in the way the branches bend around the talan, closing it off from view, but it’s not exactly soundproof. The thought of someone else overhearing him, rhapsodizing to no one about a pretty dancer while he gets himself off, is so mortifying that it ruins the whole thing.

Frustrated, he puts the lamp out and goes to bed.

~

Elrohir decides that a change of venue might be nice. Usually they sit on his bed, though he couldn't say why—habit, he supposes. He glances out the wide windows, and thinks with a hint of mischief that perhaps he should go out-of-doors. There's a little thrill in the notion of being out where anyone could see him; the balcony might suit.

Of course, he doesn't _actually_ want to be seen. His own balcony is just a little too visible, and while it's unlikely that someone would be looking his way just at the wrong time, the very real possibility spoils the fantasy a bit.

Elladan's balcony, on the other hand, is perfect. It's the last one on this side of the house, adjacent to Elrohir's as their rooms are also adjacent. A small cluster of trees has grown up between the two, though, blocking the view from prying eyes. He knows Elladan won't mind, far off as he is in Lothlorien.

Elrohir lets himself into Elladan's rooms, locking the door behind himself just in case, then goes out to the balcony. The weather is cool and pleasant, overcast but not threatening rain. He makes himself comfortable on a long bench and slides a hand into his leggings, pressing his palm lightly against the head of his cock while he unlaces with the other hand. The leaves rustle softly overhead, and the sound of the river is a distant, soothing background.

He touches himself idly at first, thinking of nothing in particular. At the moment his mind is still unpacking the day, sorting through and deciding what to keep. He thinks about the things he must remember to make time for tomorrow; recalls a story one of the grooms told him this morning which he’ll have to share with Elladan when he comes home; considers Elladan all the way in Lothlorien and wonders how he’s finding it. They’ll write, no doubt. He half-laughs wondering if Elladan is as much a creature of habit as he is, and if he is doing the same thing right now, and wondering about Elrohir; but then he considers the implications of the thought and decides to think of something else very quickly.

There are some handsome Northmen visiting Imladris just now, and they’ll serve the purpose well enough. Elrohir calls up the image of one of them, a man of middle years with russet-brown hair not yet beginning to grey and a close-trimmed beard, and piercing grey eyes. His name is Yngvi, Elrohir thinks, or Yngvar; either way, he’ll do. There are those among the elves of Imladris who find Men unappealing, too coarse or imperfect, but that is part of the draw for Elrohir. After all, he and Elladan have never been quite as flawless as the full-elves they associate with.

He can see it sometimes, the kinship between themselves and the Edain. He thinks again of Yngvi’s piercing eyes, stormy and keen rather than cool and dispassionate like an elf’s. He can see a similar pair in the looking-glass, or...elsewhere, if he cares to look. He takes himself in hand with more intent now, thinking of Yngvi’s close-cropped, tidy beard—and the other places hair grows short and coarse on Men that it does not on elves. He and Elladan are somewhere in-between, downy chests and faint lines of dark hair down their stomachs, a sparser framing of curls below than Yngvi must have.

His fist moves slow but deliberate, because he likes to edge up on pleasure little by little. A cool breeze steals across the balcony, ruffling his hair, and Elrohir imagines fingers doing the same; he tips his face up, envisioning a kiss rough with beard. The wind picks up and the sigh of the trees becomes the sigh of a lover. He pictures Yngvi bending down, then kneeling naked and handsome over his lap where he sits on the bench. The picture isn’t quite right, and he knows it—the Man in his imagination has just slightly too light a build, too little hair on his chest, and his braids fall longer and darker over his shoulders than they should—but somehow Elrohir can’t seem replace it with a more accurate image. (If his previous observations of Men bear out, the cock should be shorter and thicker than he’s picturing, too, but he doesn’t know that for certain.)

He supposes it doesn’t matter. It feels good to imagine, to think of that not-quite-Edain body draped against his own. He wonders how Elladan would describe Yngvi, whether he could do a better job of it. He wonders whether Elladan notices the similarities between themselves and Men, or only the differences. He wonders—

A raindrop spatters across the bridge of his nose, disrupting his train of thought. Several more follow in quick succession as his eyes snap open, and Elrohir sighs in irritation. So much for not threatening rain! The deluge starts before he can do more than tuck himself loosely back into his leggings, and by the time he dashes inside and throws the balcony doors shut behind him, he is unpleasantly soaked and even more unpleasantly unsatisfied.

Well, he isn’t very well going to go back to his own room in this state, so he might as well settle in. He lays a fire in the hearth and peels out of his sopping clothing, leaving it on the slowly warming stone to dry. He finds a cloth in the bathing chamber to squeeze his hair out into, then sprawls out across Elladan’s bed, taking himself in hand again. Elladan won't mind, he tells himself—and even if he did, he'd hardly have grounds to object, given how often they've done this on Elrohir's bed. (Not like this, admittedly, stripped bare and climbing beneath the coverlet for warmth, but that’s hardly his fault.)

There’s something reassuringly cosy about it, being dry and warm in a soft bed after being wet and cold. Elrohir settles in as the fire begins to heat the room, and calls up once more the image of not-quite-Yngvi pressed against him. He sinks into the pleasure, lifting his hips a little into his own fist as he strokes, turning his head to one side and pressing his cheek to the pillow.

He does not quite notice when it happens. He catches the faint hint of Elladan’s scent—it is his bed after all, though the linens are clean—and the fantasy resolves itself a little more sharply, all hints of red in Yngvi’s hair gone, the bearded chin a forgotten detail. It doesn’t take long after that before he’s close, breathing hard and holding himself quiet with a hand pressed over his mouth; it’s only when he recognizes the shape his lips are forming against his palm, the name not being said, that he realizes with horror what his subconscious is up to.

It’s agony to stop. But the alternative is unthinkable.

He tightens his fist until it’s just shy of painful, trying to cool his blood by sheer force of will. It doesn’t work, of course, but the discomfort helps him clear his head a little. He keeps his mind carefully blank as he gets up and makes the bed, trying to erase every sign he has been there. Then he quenches the fire, puts on his still-wet clothing, and goes back out into the downpour. That should kill his desire quickly enough.

It hardly matters if, half-drowning himself on Elladan’s balcony, he puts his head in his hands. After all, no one can see him.

~

Elrohir might expect his guilt to make him skittish when Elladan comes home, but in fact, it does the opposite. When they embrace in greeting, he finds himself holding on a little longer than necessary, in need of reassurance. Elladan pulls back after a moment, hands on Elrohir’s shoulders as he looks into his face. “Is everything all right?”

Elrohir gives him a wry, self-deprecating smile, and waves away the concern. “I don’t realize how much of a shut-in I can be until my oldest playmate goes missing, I suppose. I was lonely while you were off having adventures in the Golden Wood.”

Elladan grins at that, hooking an arm around his neck and pressing their foreheads together in an affectionate gesture. “Come on, then, if you missed me so much. You can help me unpack.”

An hour later Elladan is sitting on the floor, his trunk mostly emptied; Elrohir is perched on the windowsill, one leg hanging down, looking out on the sunset with an expression his brother doesn’t quite know how to read. He turns, suddenly, smiling down at Elladan. “So, was there anyone worth writing home about? Metaphorically speaking, of course, since you didn’t write me a single Valar-damned letter.”

Elladan laughs. “I forgot! Besides, you’ve been there. There wasn’t much new to say. Trees still sparkly, staircases still nerve-wracking, love Elladan.” His smile grows a little sly. “But there were a few ladies I wish you could have seen.”

“I wouldn’t have appreciated them the way you do. But tell me. I like the way you describe them.”

“If you like,” Elladan says, as if he’s not dying to. He uses the sill where Elrohir’s perched to haul himself to his feet, moving towards the bed. “But I’m getting comfortable. You staying there?”

Elrohir glances out the large window, which is on the wall without the balcony—in full view of a stretch of well-trafficked walkway below—and snorts. “Not unless you mean to describe these ladies very chastely indeed.” He crosses to the bed, then hesitates; Elladan has settled at the foot, leaving the head for Elrohir. The memory of lying on that pillow, imagining things he should not imagine, makes him skittish. “I usually sit at the foot,” he says, aware of how childish it sounds.

Elladan shrugs, comfortable where he is. “So sit down here. It’s not as if there isn’t room. I’m not moving.”

Elrohir does. It’s a big bed, after all. They’re closer than usual, but not _too_ close.

Probably.

“So these Galadhrim ladies,” he says, to dispel any remaining uncertainty, or at least commit to it.

“Grandmother has two new handmaidens.” Elladan decides not to mention the dancer, still feeling unaccountably embarrassed when he thinks of her. “Well, she calls them handmaidens, but they might as well be guards. Ai Valar, Elrohir, you should have seen Agarhel’s arms! Her biceps were near as big as yours, she must be a practiced archer. And the definition in her shoulders…”

Elrohir doesn’t know where to look. He always looked at Elladan before. It never seemed strange, when they were facing one another at opposite ends of the bed—and after all, it’s perfectly natural to look at someone when they’re speaking—but now he would have to turn his head to do it, and it seems too intimate. Looking straight ahead is no good either; he can see Elladan unlacing out of the corner of his eye, and noticing feels sneaky and dishonest, enjoying the show without owning up to the fact of watching.

He turns his head away, then closes his eyes for good measure, and listens to Elladan talk.

“Actually, she has shoulders a lot like yours too.” Elladan laughs at himself. “Much nicer bosom than yours, thankfully, or I’d begin to worry about my tastes!” He can’t see Elrohir’s face, can’t see the way he worries his bottom lip between his teeth at that, even as he begins to touch himself through the fabric.

“I thought you liked softer women,” Elrohir says after a moment, something of a rasp in his voice. Elladan mistakes it for the huskiness of desire; no matter how much his brother claims to favor men, he never fails to rise to the occasion for Elladan’s descriptions of women.

“Oh, she’s soft enough where it counts.” Which is true, but he must admit that her toned arms and back kept him surprisingly enthralled. He pictures her turning away, sweeping aside her walnut-dark hair—braided like a man’s—to reveal muscles in sharp definition. He can’t quite see her face in this mental picture, but he holds onto it anyway, stoking the fire rising in him. “But you’re right, she’s not the sort I usually go for, strong and dark. I honestly think she could pin me down and have her way with me, and not just because I’d let her win.”

There’s a sudden silence, as they both imagine that; it’s broken, soon after, by the sound of their breathing, rough and in tandem. Elrohir turns halfway back, sneaks a glance out of the corner of his eye—he can see it, too easily, someone with fine arms and walnut-dark braids pushing his brother down onto the bed, holding him there as he strains and struggles and then happily submits. He watches Elladan in his peripheral vision, watches him savoring the notion, and without quite realizing it he times his strokes to his brother’s.

“I think she’d hunt me like a great cat,” Elladan murmurs, half to himself. “All teeth and claws when I least expect it.”

Elrohir shivers, and they are close enough together that Elladan can feel the movement. “Eru, Elladan, the way you talk…”

“Don’t get _too_ excited. I’ve barely said anything yet,” Elladan answers, breathlessly, though he’s very clearly pleased. “It’s kind of funny, actually,” he muses, when Elrohir doesn’t respond. “I couldn’t really...do this while I was gone. I mean. I managed, but it wasn’t the same.” As soon as it’s out of his mouth he realizes how foolish it sounds, but Elladan’s always been the sort to brazen it out when his mouth gets him in trouble.

“ _This_? What, you mean…?” Elrohir dares a direct glance at him, his eyes darting downwards briefly before he can help it. There’s something startled and—hopeful? in his expression, and suddenly Elladan feels the awkwardness, the embarrassment creeping back in. He does his determined best to tamp it down.

“Mm.” It’s an affirmative noise, but a careless one. “It’s more...I like being able to describe people to you, it’s better when I can say it out loud.” And he likes the way Elrohir’s breath stutters when he does it—no, wait, not that _specifically_ , that would be inappropriate—he tells himself he likes having the _power_ to describe someone so compellingly that Elrohir reacts. That’s what it is. That’s why he’s so close to coming already, that and not being able to do this properly while he was away. Nothing more.

Elrohir looks away from his brother, and even though he’s trying to stay quiet his breaths stop and start in a recognizably erratic rhythm that says he is close too. He thinks of Yngvi, and then of this Agarhel. _Biceps as big as yours_ , he hears again, _shoulders a lot like yours, strong and dark. I managed, but_ _it wasn’t the same._ His heart leaps, like a frightened hare or a joyful child. “I—couldn’t either. It wasn’t the same without you. I came in here for a change of scenery, but it just made me think of you—”

Elladan has never felt this wretched and this good all at once. His mortification rises right along with his arousal, and suddenly he _needs_ Elrohir to stop talking. He’s going to come. He _cannot_ come with Elrohir saying—implying—oh, Eru. “Right,” he interrupts sharply, with barely a moment to spare. “Nothing weird, just— _oh—_ ” and there he has to pause, gasping, as he tips over the edge.

Elrohir watches him, something like mortification suddenly blooming in his own expression. Maybe it’s catching. He comes mere moments later, his eyes still where they shouldn’t be, though he tears them away as soon as he realizes.

“I didn’t mean—”

“No, I know. It isn’t like—”

“I’m not _into—_ ”

“I didn’t mean that I _couldn’t_ —”

They both laugh awkwardly, stop trying to talk over one another, and pretend to relax. The moment passes.

But then, it is only the first of many.


End file.
